Imagine
youíre driving home, late, after an unusually hard day at work. You are
really tired, frustrated and very stressed.

Suddenly you
start to experience severe pain in your chest and then this radiates out
into your arm and up into your jaw. You are five miles from help but you do
not know if you will be able to make it that far. What can you do?

You may have
been trained in CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) but the person who
taught you did not tell you how to conduct it on yourself. Since many people
are alone when they suffer a heart attack, without help, the person whose
heart is beating improperly and who starts to feel faint only has 10 seconds
before they loose consciousness.

Question:
What must you do?

Answer:

Do not panic but
start coughing repeatedly and very vigorously.

A deep breath
should be taken before each cough. The cough must be deep and prolonged as
when producing sputum from deep inside the chest.

A breath and a
cough must be repeated about every two seconds without let-up until help
arrives or until the heart is felt to be beating normally again.

Deep breaths get
oxygen into the lungs and the coughing movements squeeze the heart and
keep the blood circulating.

The squeezing
pressure on the heart helps it regain normal rhythm. In this way heart
attack victims can get to a hospital.

Pass this
information to as many people as possible; it could just save their life.
Donít think that because someone is younger than 25yrs this does not mean
them because changes in lifestyle now means heart attack can hit all age
groups.

[This article appeared in No. 240 of the Journal of Rochester
General Hospital, USA]